An Observation on Immigration Policy, Globalizaton

Newsweek magazine's non-election feature article this week had to do with how the United States is prepared to compete in the global market. As China and India continue to grow, how will the United States continue to stay on top economically? Will the United States be able to stay on top economically?
One of the points made in the article was that India and China are greatly outpacing the US in producing engineers and other technical professionals. According to the Newsweek article China and India now graduate 5 times more engineers than the United States. At this rate, by 2011 90 percent of all engineers in the world will be in Asia.

With that in mind, I'm forced to consider the demographics of the technical and medical majors in American universities. The engineering departments are filled with Asian students. Most of these students come to the United States on student visas. They get educated in the American universities, then many return to their home countries without ever contributing to the American economy.

In light of the continually rising global economy and the pressures US businesses are facing from all over, why does the US government continue to allow these student visas? Americans are essentially training our competition, and if these students are being trained in public universities, Americans are using tax dollars to do it. Americans are essentially subsidizing the weakening of any US technical advantage.

Why?

There was a time when a high number of foreign students in US universities did not pose a threat. Perhaps that time has passed.

I have a suggestion. Instead of limiting student visas, the State Department will still allow student visas, but with one stipulation. If you take advantage of a US education, post-graduation you have to work at least 7 years in a job within the United States or if working outside the United States it would need to be for a US company. I suggest this stipulation should be required for all foreign students looking to take advantage of the superior American university system, but especially for students looking to go to a public university.
Why did I pick 7 years? As a engineering degree-holder myself, I know that the first two years on the job are mostly training. I figured that 5 solid years would be a fair contribution. Therefore, you need 7 years; 2 for training, 5 for production.

What would be the result of such a policy? I suspect the number of student visas would go down. Universities would not like it because they make a lot of money off these students tuition. Supply and demand would dictate that Universities might actually have to lower tuition, or at least slow the tremendous growth of tuition. Is that such a bad thing? Secondly, demand for engineers and professionals may increase in the workplace. Therefore, there would be more incentive for US students to fill the gap.

I'm not suggesting that we should keep foreign students from our universities. We should accept the best qualified students regardless of location, but is it too much to ask for a little bit back in return?